Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has oft been said that a country that loses control of its borders is no longer a country. It has been said that a country that loses control of its borders loses control of its destiny. I regret to say, standing here in the Senate chamber today, that the Rudd government is rapidly losing control of Australia’s borders. I have no doubt that in this debate there will be attempts by the Labor Party to obfuscate and to hide the real crisis that is appearing on Australia’s doorsteps. There will be much talk about legal and illegal asylum seekers. The Labor Party would have you believe that those who arrive here with a valid visa and then seek asylum are exactly the same as those that arrive here illegally. They are prepared to break the law to get into our country, fleeing countries of safe haven. There is no question that we have been seeing more asylum seekers entering Australia illegally since this government started winding back the policies that served Australia so well.

Once again, it will come as no surprise to you, Mr Deputy President, but it may surprise those who are listening to this broadcast, that once again the Rudd government has broken promises. In an interview just before the last election, on 23 November 2007, the very day before the last federal election, Mr Rudd made a number of promises that have since been broken. In that interview, with representatives of the Australian newspaper, he said we need:

… effective laws, effective detention arrangements, effective deterrent posture vis-a-vis vessels approaching Australian waters.

He said:

You’d turn them back. You cannot have anything that is orderly if you allow people who do not have a lawful visa in this country to roam free.

He was going to turn the boats back. But what he has done is to turn back the clock to a time before 2002 when the Howard government strengthened our border protection laws. He turned back the clock to a time when thousands of people were entering this country illegally. The consequences of his irrational, ill-considered and, quite frankly, cruel policies are there for all of us to see. Since Mr Rudd was elected, 1,464 illegal arrivals have entered Australian territorial waters. In 13 months we have had 31 boats. There is no sign that they are stopping. There is no sign that they are dissuaded at all by our border protection policies. The only sign we have is that they are being encouraged by the winding back of the laws. They are being encouraged to hop into dangerous leaky boats by people smugglers in Indonesia, who are going around saying, ‘We can get you into Australia, life will be better there and you will be out in the community within a couple of months.’

The laws that the Rudd government have wound back—the legislation that it has repealed or changed—go to the very heart of our border security. It scrapped the Pacific solution, which many people did not agree with but which, frankly, offered an extreme deterrent to those who sought to enter our country illegally. It has abolished temporary protection visas. It has abolished the 45-day rule, which was designed to stop rorts of our Medicare and our social security system. The Rudd government has cut the budget for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship by $124 million and it has cut 600 staff over the last 18 months. This is a shameful record. The government has abolished the debt which acted as a deterrent to those who were found to have claimed fraudulently, illegally and without any basis to have refugee status or asylum. It acted as a deterrent for them to try again to get into this country. I am ashamed to say that we are now getting people who were rejected under the Howard government’s legislation from entering this country illegally trying to again enter. Why wouldn’t they? They get put up on Christmas Island. They get fed and clothed. The conditions there are much better than they have perhaps experienced from where they have come.

The Rudd government will have you believe that these people are impoverished and fleeing some sort of persecution. They may have indeed fled persecution from their original domicile or residence, but more often than not they have been through one, two and sometimes three other countries. They have paid along the way thousands—if not tens of thousands—of dollars to get into a leaky boat to come to Australia. Just yesterday I heard from one of the senators on the government benches that these people hopped into these boats and did not actually know where they were going to. They just knew they had to get somewhere safer than a hotel in downtown Jakarta or a village in Indonesia, where their lives are not under threat. They are paying hard cash to cruel people smugglers to get to Australia because they know that when they get here they are going to get a better life. They know they are going to get it because there is very little penalty attached to it.

This government is losing control of the battle against illegal arrivals. As I said, 1,464 people have arrived illegally in this country since the Rudd government started to change the laws. It is a record which no country should be proud of. It is a record that stands in stark contrast to the humanitarian efforts that Australia has typically represented on the world stage in dealing with those people who seek through the appropriate channels genuine humanitarian or refugee assistance. As I understand it, on the refugee scale Australia ranks third in the world in accepting those who are displaced. We had a prudent, effective and very sensible approach to migration and humanitarian assistance to refugees in this country. Every single one of these 1,464 illegal arrivals in this country that is granted asylum, refugee status or permanent residence in Australia is taking the place of those people who seek to do the right thing and are waiting in accordance with the United Nations mandated requirements or are complying with Australia’s own visa and migration requirements. No other conclusion can be drawn by a sensible and considered analysis of what has transpired. This government has changed the laws. It has wound back the clock. As a consequence of this, in less than 13 months, more illegal arrivals have bobbed up in Australian waters than in the previous six years since the Howard government enforced and strengthened the integrity of Australia’s borders.

I jump back to my opening remarks. A country that loses control of its borders is no longer a country. A country that loses control of its borders is no longer in control of its destiny. The very question of the integrity of the future of our nation resides in making our borders strong and secure and in ensuring that we decide who will come to this country and who will be allowed to stay here. It is not humanitarian, fair or equitable, and it is completely unrealistic, to expect that you can soften our borders, you can soften our laws and you can wind back the clock and not be implicitly supporting those who seek to breach our border security. Mark my words: there are people smugglers that are plying their trade up and down the coast, looking for people to arrive in our country and to enter Australian waters illegally. They are making a grotesque profit by putting people’s lives at risk and making promises based on the headlines in the paper which are directly related to the softening of these border protection programs. This is not a question of Australia’s humanitarian efforts. It is not a question of Australia not doing its bit. It is a question of Australia maintaining its integrity and sending a very strong message to people smugglers that Australia is not open for their business. (Time expired)